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Sunday, December 15, 2013

Devils coach Pete DeBoer said before tonight’s game against the Tampa Bay Lightning that he’s been looking over the past few weeks for one of his goaltenders to step and “grab the ball.”

As he has done so many times, Martin Brodeur answered the call Saturday night when the Devils needed the win, making 33 saves in a 3-0 victory over the Tampa Bay Lightning at Prudential Center.

The shutout was Brodeur’s third of the season and the 124th of the 41-year-old future Hall of Famer’s career, increasing his NHL record total.

“If we can get that every night, I’d take that,” DeBeor said, half joking, about Brodeur’s play. It’s exactly what we needed at the right time.”

It was only one game, but it was one the Devils needed badly after losing five of their previous six (1-4-1) to fall into seventh place in the mediocre Metropolitan Division. Although still two games under NHL. 500, the Devils leapfrogged one point ahead of the Rangers and Philadelphia and into a tie with Columbus for fourth place.

“It’s hard to put some wins together, some streaks together,” Brodeur said. “In the standings, we’re still pretty fortunate our division is not doing well, but you just can’t count on that every single day that you hope everybody is going to lose. We need to start winning. Hopefully, it’s a start, but we’ve been saying that all year.”

DeBoer has been essentially alternating between Broduer and Cory Schneider over the last three weeks, hoping one of them would get hot. Broduer had a good run of seven wins in eight starts that began on Oct. 26, but had cooled off since then and lost five out of six before Saturday.

Schneider has lost his last three starts (one in a shootout), including a rough outing in a 3-2 loss in Pittsburgh Friday, following a three-game winning streak.

Brodeur bounced back with a sharp outing after allowing five goals on 23 shots in a 5-4 loss in Columbus on Tuesday and giving up 15 goals over his previous four starts.

Having been the Devils’ clear No. 1 goaltender for nearly 20 years now, Brodeur has had to adjust to sharing the net with Schneider this season, which means starting less often.

“I know for me it’s always been hard not to be there all the time, but it’s just the way it’s been for us,” Brodeur said. “I’m sure Schneids is in the same boat. So, it’s just the way it is when you have two guys that can play. The decisions are always difficult.”

Brodeur was at his best in the second period when the Lightning outshot the Devils 14-5. His save of the night was a glove snag on Martin St. Louis from the slot 5:45 into the second that had St. Louis looking up at the ceiling in disbelief.

“I saw coming a little bit,” Brodeur said. “I stayed deep. I was following the puck and I stayed deep. I was on one side of the net, so most of the glove side was open. He hit it pretty hard. I caught it and my glove kind of turned a little bit. I wasn’t sure if it stayed in it. But it was a good one.”

Brodeur preserved his shutout by stopping Nikita Kucherov on a breakaway with 8:59 remaining. Kucherov’s shot found an opening between Brodeur’s pads, but appeared to his the inside of his left leg and skid wide of the left post.

“I have no clue,” Brodeur said when I asked him how he kept the puck out. “I asked Schneids. He said he thinks it hit my back leg and went through, but I don’t know. I didn’t’ feel it. I didn’t know where it was. So, I got lucky.”

Even after all these years and so many of them, shutouts are still special to Brodeur.

“They are,” he said. “That’s what you play hockey for – to be able to finish and nobody scores on you. That’s the job of a goalie, so when you get them it’s kind of nice.”

***

Damien Brunner scored the only goal Brodeur would need on a breakaway with 4:23 left in the second period. After taking what Brunner called “a really nice pass” from rookie defenseman Eric Gelinas in the Devils’ zone, Brunner raced between Lightning defensemen Radko Gudas and Matt Carle, pulled the puck from his backhand to his forehand and snapped it over goaltender Anders Lindback’s glove for his seventh of the season.

“It doesn’t really happen a lot these days in the NHL,” Brunner said. “We got some room in the neutral zone and I was able to generate some speed. Gelly made the perfect pass.”

"I saw him swinging and I knew that he had speed," Gelinas said. "I didn't know he was going to be wide open like that, but he screamed and he was open, so my job was to put it on his tape."

The goal was Brunner’s seventh of the season and third in the last three games following a 17-game drought. Brunner had another great chance in the third period after stickhandling around Gudas in the slot, but Lindback made a glove save to rob him.

Still, it was another example of the confidence Brunner told he me Friday he gained from his two-goal game Tuesday in Columbus.

“I just feel more comfortable with the puck right now by generating offense and handling the puck and feeling the pressure to make some plays,” he said.

The way Brunner has been using his speed and making plays over the last three games has provided a reminder of why the Devils signed him after a brief tryout in September.

“He looks like the player we saw in training camp, moving his feet, attacking holes,” DeBoer said. “At the same time, defensively, I think he’s been good, which allows me to play him more and he’s getting rewarded on the score sheet.”

***Brodeur said he “tweaked” his left leg making a save on Teddy Purcell in the second period.

“I kind of tweaked my leg there a little bit, but I’m fine now,” he said. “It was kind of weird. I was in a bad spot when he shot it. I didn’t expect him to shoot. But I’m fine.”

***With the Devils leading 3-0, Lightning coach Jon Cooper decided to pull goaltender Anders Lindback with 4:36 left in regulation to put a sixth attacker on and try to get a goal. Was Brodeur thinking during that extended period about possibly shooting for the empty net and getting his third career regular season goal (fourth overall)?

About

TOM GULITTI has covered the New Jersey Devils for The Record since 2002. Prior to that, he covered the New York Rangers for four years. Gulitti joined The Record in 1998 after six years at The North Jersey Herald News. He graduated from Binghamton University in 1991 with a Bachelor of Arts in Rhetoric-Literature.